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When it comes to nutrition, it's easy to spend a lot of time worrying about what to eat. But how much you eat puts an even greater stamp on your long-term health than picking the right kind of fats or choosing exactly the right mix of vitamins.
How much you weigh (in relation to your height), your waist size, and how much weight you've gained since your mid-20s strongly influence your chances of:
 dying early
having, or dying from, a heart attack, stroke, or other type of cardiovascular disease
developing diabetes
developing cancer of the colon, kidney, breast, or endometrium having arthritis
developing gallstones
being infertile
developing asthma as an adult
snoring or suffering from sleep apnea, or
developing cataracts.
Despite the substantial impact of weight on individual health, and the soaring rates of obesity in the United States, relatively few Americans see excess weight as a problem.
In a survey conducted by researchers at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, almost 1,000 Americans ranked obesity low on the list of serious health problems. Equally alarming, only 9 percent said their
weight was a problem, even though more than half were overweight.(1) That's a shocking finding, given that excess weight leads to at least 300,000 deaths per year (2) and costs more than $70 billion each year in direct costs alone.(3) Obesity now accounts for more deaths and chronic disorders, and poorer healthrelated quality of life, than either smoking or problem drinking.(4)
Source: Harvard School of Public Health |
Healthy Weight Loss 
